Shailene Woodley Battles Mother Nature In Survival Drama 'Adrift'

Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur’s follow-up to his 2015 real-life survival thriller Everest is yet another harrowing survival drama based on a true story. This time it’s about Tami Oldham (Shailene Woodley) and her fiancé Richard Sharp (Sam Claflin) who sail across the Pacific in 1983 into Hurricane Raymond, one of the worst storms in history.

What sets Adrift apart from other recent lost-at-sea dramas — notably the Robert Redford-starring All is Lost, Life of Pi, and Kormákur’s own The Deep — is that the ordeal is told from a woman’s perspective.

The courtship scenes may have slowed down the action, but they have a powerful emotional pay-off in the end. Watch this for Woodley: as the weathered warrior battling the elements, she gives one helluva performance. (***)